Woodworking Tip: Preventing Chip Out, Splintering and Tear Out with a Chop Saw

You may often notice that there is a little bit of chip out on your wood after you have cut it with your miter saw. There are several simple techniques to prevent the chip out, splintering, and tear out that you may get with your chop saw.

The first woodworking tip is to either let the blade stop before you raise it up past your cut, or move your cut piece back as the blade is still running after the cut but before you raise the blade up. If you watch the professional woodworkers on TV shows, you will notice they typically hold the wood in place and the saw down until the blade has stopped its motion. After the blade is completely stopped, then they will raise the blade up. I have noticed that now matter how nice the saw or blade, or how aligned the saw is, there is a tiny bit of wobble on the blade. As the blade penetrates the wood it makes a nice, even cut. But if you raise the blade up past the cut piece of wood, the tiny wobble of the blade nicks the top edge of the wood as you lift it up, leaving some chipping, splintering, or tear out along the top edge. This can be prevented by simply letting the blade stop before lifting it back up.

The second tip is to to slow down the speed which you push the blade through the wood. The faster you move for your cut, the more likely you will experience some chipping, splintering, or tear out. Also, let the blade get up to full speed before you come in contact with the wood.

The third tip is obviousl, but get a new saw blade. The more teeth per blade, the more fine the cut and less likely damage to the wood. However, the more teeth, the slower the blade will move through the wood. So there needs to be a balance between productivity and quality. With soft woods like pine and douglas fur, you can get away with less teeth, but as you get into harder woods like oak and maple, you will need more teeth to make a quality cut.